Stanza (GB), The Nemesis Machine: From Metropolis to Megalopolis to Ecumenopolis

Stanza (GB), The Nemesis Machine: From Metropolis to Megalopolis to Ecumenopolis

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A large-scale installation representing a miniature city built entirely from electronic components and communication networks – motherboards and electronic circuits.

The project employs environmental monitoring technologies and security technologies to visualise life in the metropolis in real time, using the data from London’s network of sensors which monitor sounds, noise, light, vibrations, humidity and GPS location signals. In its reliance on monitoring, the installation resembles somewhat the Big Brother as interpreted in terms of the Internet of things and gives a bird’s eye view of a cybernetic cityscape. Additionally, small cameras show images of the visitors, making them part of the city’s organism.

The Nemesis Machine explores the complexities involved in the operations of a city as a shifting, morphing and intricate system, and proposes new ways of thinking about life embedded in public spaces.

Stanza, an internationally recognised British artist who addresses the themes of the urban landscape, surveillance culture, privacy and alienation in the city. Stanza is particularly interested in real time events which can be re-imagined and sourced for information. His aim is to communicate everyday experiences and emotions which impact our daily lives and elude social control. Since the mid-1980s, Stanza’s work has focused on the participatory system of the city, posing questions that trigger debates on the politics of space. Stanza processes the retrieved information and data to call into life what he calls a parallel reality.